


never too quickly, never too slowly

by couldaughter



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shirley Wilson does what she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never too quickly, never too slowly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measured_Words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/gifts).



The graveyard was quiet the morning they buried Kieren Walker. It had been raining the night before, left the ground soft and spongy, so the only noise as they lowered the coffin was of unsuitable shoes sinking into the mud with every nervous shuffle.

No one spoke. Sue Walker looked like she was about to burst into tears. Steve didn’t look like anything at all - it freaked Shirley out a bit, but she understood the dead look a little too well. If she lost Phil- well, best not to think about it.

She nudged him as they were walking out of the graveyard. “Home?”

Phil looked down at her - and hadn’t that growth spurt been a surprise - and shrugged. “I s’pose.” He paused. “Are you ok, mum?”

“Me?” Shirley raised her eyebrows. “I would’ve thought I should be worrying about you, you big lummox. I’ll deal with it - he was your friend.” She put an arm around him and pulled him in for a sideways hug.

If she cried into her pillow later that night, well, no one would ever get her to admit it.

\---

The dead rose in Roarton when all Shirley really wanted to do was settle in for an early night with a good book. And then she didn’t get a chance to finish the bloody thing for four years, what with the extra medical training and the fighting to stay alive and the sudden, complete lack of interest in Stephen King.

Shirley had trained as a nurse right out of secondary school, back when uni was free and she got grants upon grants from the NHS. The additional training, the lessons on administering neurotryptaline and dealing with - “taking care of” - patients that went rabid (through no fault of their own!) was also on the government, but Shirley didn’t enjoy it quite as much. The whole business was decidedly morbid, if you asked her.

There was just something about the rotters - PDS sufferers - that gave her the willies. Obviously none of what they’d done was their fault, because otherwise Shirley would be training to help _murderers_ , but their eyes always got her. 

After her last day of training, the day before Kieren Walker returned to Roarton, she settled onto the sofa with a cup of tea and sighed.

“Phil, be a good boy and fetch me a pillow?”

“Alright mum!” Phil’s voice drifted down from upstairs. He seemed to be eternally busy with something, always bustling around organising files for the PCC. Shirley didn’t really get why he put quite so much effort into it. She’d always thought PCCs were meant to be sort of like the ones in Vicar of Dibley - harmless and full of bickering. Parochial, in a word. But all Phil’s stories were starting to worry her, especially the ones about Vicar Oddie. 

Eventually Phil made his way downstairs with her pillow and her reading glasses. 

“Ta, love.” She smiled at him, rearranged herself on the sofa so she could lie down comfortably, then beckoned him over. “Alright, Phil. How was your day?”

“Oh, erm, it was alright, mum. Just a day, really.” He shuffled uncomfortably, eyes downcast.

Shirley raised her eyebrows. “You’ll never win prizes for your attention to detail, will you.” She smiled again. “Sorry, that was a bit harsh. It’s been a long day.”

“S’alright.” Phil gave her a weak smile. “I- I think dad might want to come visit. Sometime.”

Shirley sat up, fighting a spell of dizziness. “Where did you get that idea?” she asked. In a horror story the temperature would’ve dropped by a few degrees. As it was, she still had to suppress a shiver.

He shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

“Your dad- Phil, I showed you the letter.” She closed her eyes, rubbing a hand over her face.

“I know you did, I do, it’s just, with all these ro- PDS sufferers returning to the town, I thought maybe there was a chance,” he said, pacing the length of the sofa.

The thing was, Shirley had thought about that. She’d been thinking about it ever since she got the letter, two years into the Rising when the postal service was still hanging on by the skin of its teeth (no thanks to the Tories, of course). That letter had put some things into perspective. Most of all, that she needed to get out of the house she’d fortified over the past two years and actually put her nurse training to some use.

There were certainly plenty of humans to treat, and the last two years of the rising left Shirley a better medic, and she liked to think a better person. She’d signed up for the PDS training the very day she’d got the application form.

Philip didn’t know, but maybe that was for the best. He was always worrying about something - Shirley had a feeling having his mum running around helping all the PDS patients in the town wouldn’t make him sleep any easier.

\---

It was a quiet day when Kieren Walker came back to Roarton.

Shirley got the call about him two days before he arrived - nearly dropped the phone into a bowl of cornflakes she’d been balancing on her knees.

The voice on the phone got louder.

“Hmm? Oh, no, of course. Fine. That’s fine. I’ll pop round once he’s settled with the medicine. No problem.” Shirley hung up the phone and then looked guiltily at the ceiling - she wanted to tell Philip about his friend but. _But_. Everything was a lot more complicated than it had been four years before.

She turned back to her cornflakes, which were getting soggier by the second, and tried to put all thoughts of the previously dead out of her mind for the time being. The family photos on the mantelpiece had been packed away months before but she could still see her husband’s face everywhere.

Maybe if he hadn’t run off to join the HVF he’d be sat next to her, complaining about the telly and spilling milk on the sofa. His DVDs were still stacked next to the TV, his jackets were still in Shirley’s wardrobe, and she needed to stop hoping he’d come home.

“Philip?”

He appeared in the doorway, absently straightening his tie as he walked in. “Yes, mum?”

“Come keep your old mum company, would you pet?” Shirley firmly shut the door on such negative thinking and switched on the telly instead.

Kieren Walker had been gone a long time. He could wait a little longer.


End file.
